


Fear and Hope

by zaan



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Advice, Developing Relationship, Emotions, Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaan/pseuds/zaan
Summary: What is there left for Garak to hope for?  More than he knows





	1. Chapter 1

"Garak," said Ziyal, with a hesitant glance that quickly shifted down to her hands, resting on the table between them, "Can I ask you something?  Something personal?"

Half-answers and evasions, his usual stock-in-trade, quickly presented themselves.  Garak dismissed them.  He would not do that to Ziyal.  Neither would he trivialize the import of the question with a facile 'of course', as if it were nothing to him to be asked or to answer.  "You may," he replied, matching her earnestness.  "I will try to tell you the truth, Ziyal, if I can."

She nodded, a lock of hair falling across her face.  She brushed it back, took in a breath, and looked up at him.  "I wanted to ask, I wanted to know ... what it is that frightens you."

Garak did not show his surprise, but leaned back slowly in his chair, studying her.  He was a skilled enough interrogator to know that what she sought from him was not a confession, but comfort.   "If you are asking if your fears are normal, my dear, rest assured that they are."

"But you don't even know what they are."  She picked up a napkin from the table and began making random folds in it.

"Then tell me."

"It's just, I'm always worried that people are mad at me or disappointed in me.  It can be the smallest of things, like Nerys frowning when I'm telling her something or Jake not responding immediately when I send him an invitation to something.  I know - I _know_ they don't really feel that way, but that fear that I've done something wrong, it's always there, following me."

Garak hesitated, then laid a hand gently over hers.  "Ziyal, you asked me what frightens me.  The answer is - nothing."  Garak squeezed her hand and continued,  "But the reason I am no longer afraid is that I no longer have expectations.   I do not fear condemnation and rejection because I have already been condemned and rejected.  Kindness, even mere politeness, is still a surprise when it is extended to me, because I can no longer believe that I merit even those small considerations.  Do not despise your fears, Ziyal, for they mirror your hopes."

Ziyal was silent.  Garak felt a heavy weariness settle on him.  Quietly, he stood and bid Ziyal goodnight, then made his way alone through the bar.

On the far side of the room, waiting alone at a table for a date he had made with some woman he'd met that morning, Julian sat and reflected on what his enhanced senses had allowed him to overhear.  He thought about his own fear, the fear that kept him here most nights making shallow conversation with strangers, the fear that kept him from making known long-held feelings and hopes.  He had feared Garak indifferent, but now - now he understood that what he had seen as indifference was in reality an undercurrent of the hopelessness that Garak had voiced tonight.  Sadness settled over him - sadness for his friend, for himself, for lonely nights and wasted opportunities - but with the sadness came resolution, and hope.  Hope that he and Garak could discover new fears together.

He stood, abandoning his table, and made his way to where he hoped Garak was waiting.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something small I felt compelled to write - I'm not sure whether to end it here or include the scene that follows, where Julian confesses to Garak. If you'd like to see that scene, let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the encouragement to write this second bit - enjoy!

His quarters were cold and bright, as hostile and uninviting as the station and the people that surrounded him.  Each time the system was reset for repairs, or maintenance, or upgrades, or a billion other reasons, the lighting and heating defaulted to Federation standards.  Sighing, he increased the temperature and let the shadows settle.  Melancholy stalked him in the dark, its dull heartbeat his only company. 

He poured a glass of kanar, wishing to drink away the narrowness of his existence.  He did not allow himself this often – he would not again make himself as vulnerable as he had, so foolishly, in desperation, with the wire – but tonight, tonight he felt a bitter recklessness lashing at his resolve.

The chime of the door interrupted him, and he looked at it in surprise and apprehension, resenting the intrusion yet knowing he could no more escape it than his life here. 

“Computer, who is at the door?”

“Dr. Bashir is at the door.”

Garak’s resentment deepened along with the pit into which he felt himself slipping.  He wanted no reminders tonight of the intimacy and love for which he longed and yet was forever denied.  But Garak knew that, whatever it was that brought the doctor to his door, he would persist until Garak answered.  Reluctantly, he opened the door.

When the doctor entered, he looked to Garak undecided and uncertain.  Garak knew his role well - to tease and to enthrall - but he had no stomach for it tonight.  “Doctor,” he said.  “Please excuse me.  I’m not much in the mood for company tonight.  Perhaps whatever you need could wait until tomorrow.”

“No, it can’t, actually.”

Garak sighed and turned his back on the doctor, picking up his kanar.  “Very well, then.  What is it you want?” he asked ungraciously.  The doctor could take offense or not, as he liked.

“You.”

That single word, soft as spring rain.  Garak turned around slowly, perplexed.  “For what?”

Julian shook his head.  “Not for anything, not because of anything.  You asked me what I wanted.  I want you, Elim, and … I’m hoping you want me too.”

Garak stared blankly, confused by the words, by the promise they carried.  “You don’t – you don't mean that.”

Julian took a step closer, and Garak found himself retreating in equal measure.  “I do.  I know … I know I haven’t shown it, but I’ve felt this way for a long time.”

“If that’s true, then why?  Why now?”  Garak threw the words out, as if building a wall around him could keep his world from collapsing.  It was a mistake, a misunderstanding.

“Because,” said Julian, “because it was one too many empty nights, one too many strangers in my bed instead of you.”

Garak felt dizzy, disoriented.  He set down the kanar lest it betray the tremor in his hands and turned away again so that Julian could not see the distress in his face.  He kept his voice steady, calm, needing to understand.  “What is it, exactly, that you want, Julian?  What is it, exactly, that you are asking of me?”  A night in his bed?  A week?  A month?  Could he do such a thing, and then return to … this?

Julian stepped close behind him and placed both hands on his upper arms, bending forward to rest his forehead lightly against his hair.  “I’m asking of you what I’m offering to you.  For us to be together, in every sense, tonight, tomorrow, every day, every month, every year after that.  Please, Elim.”

Garak shook.  He couldn’t.  The ocean in which he drowned was dark and cold, but although the dying  was slow it was effortless.  Despair was bitter, but hope … hope was bloody and cruel.  Julian believed he wanted him now and always, but he was human, hasty, he would tire of him, this could not last, could not mean to Julian what it meant to him.

He turned and stepped back, away from Julian, and saw the hope in his eyes falter, saw the fear that savaged him, and knew he had been wrong, that this, whatever it was that Julian held out to him, was no shallow offering– and if Julian did not lack the courage, would he? 

He took Julian’s hands and wound their fingers together.  He saw the hope return to Julian’s eyes, and felt it flutter within his own breast, then take hold, steady and deep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on a sequel to the Incarceration of Elim Garak but felt like doing something quick and poetic-ish

He dreamed in blood.  Memories gripped and ripped him.   The past hunted him with cold daggers at his throat.  The fear was a tsunami slamming into his chest. 

He awoke gasping into the dark.  There was no comfort to the waking, except a certain dull relief.  Nothing to soothe away the fear, except the weight of stiff blankets. 

"Elim?"

He froze, uncertain if the dream still clung to him, if he would turn to see Julian looking at him only with death and accusation in his eyes.

"Elim?"  Movement, a warm hand placed questioningly on his back, lips ghosting closer to fall gently on his shoulder. 

He gasped again, this time in a shaky relief that nearly undid him.

Julian shifted closer.  "Bad dream?"

Garak shuddered.  "A lifetime of them."

Compassionate arms encircled and enveloped him, comforted him.  Julian nestled his face into his hair, nuzzling his cheek.  The dream dissolved into a fragment of the past, the present warm and real. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep now?"

Garak tentatively covered Julian's hand with his own, as if touching an altar in prayer.  He grasped it tightly to his chest.  "I have every hope of it."

 

 


End file.
